We're Not Going To Be Fine (Perhaps)
by gattidivenezia
Summary: "I've always liked winter," Lily said softly, wrapping herself more tightly in her coat. "It's like being asleep. So peaceful. Harmonic." "Or harsh and cold when you wake up." In which James tries to understand the significance of last winters, quiet days and green eyes, when there's little hope to cling to. Melancholic one-shot of Lily and James in their 7th year's winter.


**A/N: **Hey guys! Winter is coming and my mood is getting more and more melancholic. I've been thinking a lot lately about James and Lily and what brought them together in the end. An idea came to my mind and... here it is. It's nothing much, really. But it captures the gist ans spirit of James and Lily for me.

I hope you enjoy it!

Love, Leslie

P.S. I highly recommend listening to the song below and/or "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel. I will... set the mood.

**Disclaimer**: If James and Lily belonged to me... but that's a whole new story. They sadly don't.

* * *

><p><em>Well, if you're travelin' in the north country fair<em>  
><em>Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline<em>  
><em>Remember me to one who lives there<em>  
><em>She once was a true love of mine<em>

_Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm_  
><em>When the rivers freeze and summer ends<em>  
><em>Please see if she's wearing a coat so warm<em>  
><em>To keep her from the howlin' winds<em>

**We're Not Going To Be Fine** _or_ **Perhaps**

– _Girl From the North Country_ –

Everything in James's life had been spectacular. His family, his friends, his winnings and failures.

They were just a few feet away; and she was whispering. With people all around, they zoomed in and out of sight, but reappeared again and again, heads bent to each other, seeming as one instead of two. He red hair was vivid among the crowd, like somebody's lit a fire too keep themselves warm, or like a constant point that would remain unchanged.

And James, for once, felt nothing. Here, surrounded by the million of other troubled hearts and heads, lost among the masses of anonymity, he was safe. He had this tingling feeling of being above everything, resembling emptiness: as if someone had freed him from all his individual human worries and responsibilities, just for the sake of being a part of a whole.

He turned away, and started walking – aimlessly, toward nothing – but forward. Somebody brushed against his shoulder, red scarf of a brown-haired girl wrapped itself around his collar. As he numbly picked it up and handed it to her, she pecked him on the cheek, and he was surprised to find that he didn't quite catch the sound of her voice, as the inevitable "Merry Christmas" came to her lips. Did he know her?

He wandered on, vaguely recognizing the voices calling his name, and familiar faces, all smiling. At once, someone pulled him in a hug, and – before he could as much as react – vanished into thin air, leaving James alone with an odd impression of having missed something and a scent of a Moony in the air. There was some muffled singing to be heard, and laughing, and although he couldn't put a name to it, the tune sounded familiar, as if a distant recollection of something already forgotten. Like home, perhaps, or his mother baking.

He didn't realise it was snowing until a snowflake stuck to his glasses. He removed them and looked up – the sky was a light grey, and from this angle the snow resembled a drizzle of dark messy spots hurrying towards the ground. James felt tempted to stick his tongue out and lick it.

He closed his eyes as the flakes began stroking his face.

A sound of footsteps cracking in the snow brought him back to the earth, from the blank space of unthinking he swam in. Footsteps were the only thing to be heard now, and James realised suddenly that he's missed the moment where the noise ceased, dissolving into silence.

He overlooked the silence itself, too, and now tried to remember what it was like – was it so complete, so thorough that it was like the noise? Was it why he didn't catch the moment it went quiet?

He glanced around, and all of sudden – or so it seemed to him – the world was empty. There was no one on the streets of Hogsmeade, no one and nothing, except for him, the snow and the silence. It seemed like ages have passed since he closed his eyes, people were born and died, and James remained there, facing the sky.

"Hey."

It was her; he knew it before he saw her, even though her voice sounded different in the snowy silence. But it had to be her – no one else could be there without spoiling the peaceful nothingness of the moment. He turned around.

Her hair was vivid against the snow, flakes entangled in it, and her cheeks were red from cold. She stood right beside him and gazed forwards at the deserted street, in a way that made him feel there was something important there, someting essential to see, that he couldn't.

But it was just the way she looked at everything – as if she caught the sense of it that no one else could. As if she understood the meaning of the quiet days like this, and streetlamps and footprints in the snow, and appreciated it silently.

"Evans."

It was all that came to his mind, simply recognizing her. It contained all of his thoughts: that she, for once, shouldn't find herself standing aimlessly by his side. That it was supposed to be over now. She was supposed to be happy somewhere else, and he was supposed to let go.

Of her. Of worrying. He was supposed to be admiring the quiet he didn't understand. Just for a day, perhaps. Just for an hour.

"I've always liked winter," Lily said softly, wrapping herself more tightly in her coat. "It's like being asleep. So peaceful. Harmonic."

"Or harsh and cold when you wake up," James said in spite of himself. The wind that played with Lily's hair was piercing. It made him feel vulnerable.

She frowned at him.

"What would be the point of sleeping if you didn't wake up?"

"I don't know. Maybe there isn't any. Maybe sometimes it's just better not to sleep at all. Saves the pain."

Lily glanced at him sideways, as a silence came upon them. She was probably surprised at the bitter note in his voice, and he couldn't blame her. It surprised him, too.

"Why, aren't you a ray of sunshine today, Potter," she teased finally. "I take it you haven't had much sleep lately."

He sighed.

"Has anybody?"

They were quiet for a moment.

"So, if you're going to be such a delight –" Lily began finally and James winced.

"Will you stop repeating that?"

"I didn't repeat it, I said something similar–"

"Oh, _shut_ _up_."

Lily looked at him disbelievingly.

"You're such a _jerk_."

"You're such a _prick_."

"Dork."

"Nerd."

"Looser."

"Oi!"

"Well, of course I'm winning," she smiled smugly.

The pressure of melancholy stored in the winter day seemed to fade momentarily. Bickering. Smirking. Teasing. It was familiar.

James looked over at Lily, who was leaning against a barrier and watching the sky in a way he did before. She tossed her mass of hair back and squinted at the snowflakes, wrinkling her nose in a funny way.

Then she laughed, "How did you manage to stand like this for such a long time? It's so goddamn annoying!"

Shaking her head impatiently, trying to get rid of the snow that landed in her lashes, she looked like a particularly displeased sandy cat and James snorted.

She was the thing that lightened the mood, he acknowledged. She was always the "ray of sun", wherever she went. But what was she doing right here, right now, remained undecipherable.

"What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were with Michael."

He shouldn't have asked.

He did.

"I was," she said simply, almost reluctantly. Her lips pursed.

"Did you two row?"

"No, we didn't."

Again, she sounded almost regretful, and James found himself nodding in understanding, simultaneously acknowledging that we didn't understand _at all_.

"We talked, actually," she said matter-of-factly, folding her arms in a serious manner and sniffing. The tip of her freckly nose was red from cold. "We talk a lot lately."

James began nodding again, and then stopped rapidly, realising how ridiculous it was.

"About what, for instance?" he asked quickly, to cover it up.

Lily suddenly appeared uneasy.

"Oh. I dunno," she muttered. "Stuff. Like..." her voice tailed off uncertainly.

"Books?" James suggested. "Snogging?"

Something tugged at her lips, that might have been a smile. Then, however, a shadow crossed her face and she looked away.

"No," she said, and her voice was very quiet as she gazed at her shoes. "Future. We talked about future."

He shouldn't have asked. Now he was feeling sick. And numb, from cold, or maybe not from cold. He shouldn't have asked.

"Oh," he muttered bleakly.

The coldness seemed to leak in through his fingers, and sink right into his heart.

"Oh, God, what is _wrong_ with us?" Lily demanded suddenly, accusingly, turning to him with an irritated look in her eyes. "We're acting like those two friends-of-friends that have nothing in common and are just awkwardly standing there, having nothing to talk about!"

"Evans..."

"Since when are we like that?"

"I... I don't know."

Since he's moved on. Since she accepted it. Since he _didn't_.

Lily was staring at him, red hair sprinkled with snowflakes.

"Me neither," she said bluntly. "But I want my James back. Not the sulky sad one, the one who calls me names and makes my life hell."

James smiled at her, "You daft prig," he said fondly.

"You're awful."

"You love it."

Lily smiled a weak, half-hearted smile, and the knot in James's gut tightened. He tried to get a grip and shoved her playfully on the arm.

"Hey, Evans, don't you worry," he said, attempting to sound flippant. But as much as it was meant to be light, it came out as soothing. Maybe that's just what James himself needed. To be comforted.

"We'll be fine. I mean, it's just... I don't know, it's just a state. It will pass. No one ever would stop me from making your life hell, I–"

But all at once there was a lump in his throat, and he couldn't go on.

They weren't going to be fine. Time was slipping through their fingers. There had been months, drastically few of them, that they had spent together. But there were even less of them they were meant to have ahead.

And while he wanted – needed – to be there for her for an indefnite amount of time – if only to make her life hell, if only to keep her head up on the shitty days, by teasing and taunting – she was already slipping through his fingers, too.

It was as if the awareness of the fact he was losing her in months, maybe weeks, made it impossible for him to rejoice the last moments together. What would have been his only escape from numbness in other times, now turned too painful to bear. It was like he was losing her everyday, a little bit.

"We'll be fine," he repeated, voice hoarse as his throat was suddenly dry. "No worries."

Wind made the snowflakes flutter.

Lily's lips were thinning.

"No worries," she whispered, and blinked rapidly. Very rapidly, with lips pursed and...

"Okay," he said briskly, and Lily looked up. No crying. No crying was allowed, or James would cry, too. And that _wasn't_ a possibility.

"Seeing as we can't talk as we used to, let's play a game: both of us have to say one thing about themselves that the other one doesn't know."

She instantly rolled her eyes. That was just the thing Lily Evans would do when James Potter said something – roll her eyes. Sometimes snort, too.

"This is stupid."

"You are stupid."

"I most certainly am _not_. But you make it sound like the only conversations we've had were insulting each other or fighting."

"Weren't they, though?"

"_No_," Lily said defiantly, although she didn't look convinced.

James was thoughtful for a moment.

"I'm afraid of heights," he muttered finally, so quietly it was almost inconceivable.

Lily's eyes widened.

"What?" she said incredulously.

"You heard me. I'm afraid of heights."

"But you can't be," Lily protested, "you're James Potter, Hogwarts Quidditch Star, Chaser Extraordinaire, it's just... how in the name of Merlin would you be able to fly a broom while being afraid of heights?"

"Trust me, Evans, I've been asking myself this for five years. Now it's your turn."

Lily shook her head in amazement.

"You can't be..."

"But I am. Your turn now."

"But–"

"Your. Turn."

Lily finally gave up and seemed to ponder on her confession.

"I... I believed in fairies for most of my years at Hogwarts," she blurted finally.

"Fairies?" James repeated. "As in, elves and pixies and such? Because they are real."

"No, no," Lily smiled with embarrassment, fumbling with her scarf. "The... the true fairies. The Peter Pan's fairies. The ones that could lead you to Neverland. I guess it was because I was thrown into a magical worl out of the blue, and... I don't know. I think I hoped part of the childhood tales were true also, as true as the magic turned out to be."

James knew the Peter Pan's story. He knew it because Moony once told it to them, many years ago, on a particularly tough night, when they were all in the Hospital Wing, gathered around his bed. And he knew it well because Sirius liked it a lot, and Remus was forced to repeat it many times afterwards.

He squinted at Lily.

"You wanted to be a Wendy?"

Lily grinned at him.

"No, actually, I wanted to be a Peter."

He laughed. "I could be Captain Hook."

She laughed, too. "Oh, you're a Captain alright. But now it's your turn again."

James racked his memory.

"Ummm... well, Sirius once ate all of Remus's chocolate supplies at once and threw up."

She snorted. "That's not even about you. Besides, I've already known that."

James shrugged.

"It still counts."

"Maybe," she was gazing forward, with her eyes unfocused.

She opened her mouth but what she meant to say was swept off by the wind that covered James's glasses with a curtain of tiny snowflakes. It was something short, a quick movement of lips. Something simple. James suddenly wished he could have heard her. He flicked his wand and cleaned the glasses.

"What did you say?"

"I... nothing. Nothing."

James nodded. Maybe it was nothing.

Lily looked up at him and again, it seemed she was about to say something. But something twinkled in her eyes and she smirked.

"Your scarf's such a mess," she muttered and scooted closer. As he waited patiently for her to fix the scarf, James could smell her perfume. It was something muggle, she once told him. Apple and some sweet smelling flowers whose name he couldn't remember.

He realised she was suppressing a grin.

"What?"

"You really aren't very tall, are you?" she said, laughing.

"Hey, that was a low blow!" he said indignantly.

He tried to scowl at her, but it was just impossible, with her mischievous eyes right in front of him. He smiled, too.

Besides, her aforementioned eyes were almost on the same level as his. He _really_ wasn't very tall.

They stared at each other, both smirking, as if challenging each other without words. As if the game was on, and would be, indefinitely.

But then something dawned on her. Her smile evaporated.

"I... I should probably go."

She watched him regretfully, wide green eyes in a small white face. James's heart gave a painful leap.

"Right," he managed. "You probably should. To Michael."

She was staring at him unmovingly, as if frozen.

"Yes," she said stiffly.

James used to imagine the day they would be to say goodbye. He imagined that day quite often lately. So often, actually, that it became like a mantra to him, a scheme. Something he believed.

He would pull her to himself, gently. She would bury her head in his chest, and he would assure her, very quietly, that he would always be there for her. And then, she would ask him to stay.

"Bye, then," she said blankly.

It would have been cheesy. It would have been cheesy and so much better than this.

"See you, Evans," he replied such.

And again, for a moment she looked as if she was about to say something else. James wondered what stopped her every time, from telling him this important or unimportant thing. He would have given a lot to hear it.

Then she turned around and walked away. Her hair was vivid against the snow, in the faint light of the lampposts.

Losing Lily Evans wasn't something James had planned. He never planned on falling for her in the first place, either. But it was Lily, and there was nothing predictable about her. She's managed to surprise him many, many times. She surprised him with Remus, she surprised him with illegal fighting. She surprised him with the friendship she offered him, after all they went through.

He had a feeling as if he's wasted something. Through all the years they didn't get on well, he didn't think much of the reason it was like that. Now, in the last months of their time together, when finally, finally something clicked – he was having regrets.

They could have been so much more than enemies, then reluctant allies, finally friends, closer than anyone would have suspected. It was _already_ more than that for him. But in the blizzard of bad news, wrong occurences, with death and pain all around, it was hard not to get lost. He didn't even know if she felt anything for him. He thought she did, at some point.

One night in the middle of November, after an illegal mission, when they were curled up in the Shrieking Shack – scared and freezing – he had kissed her. Too exhausted to talk it through, they fell asleep, pressed close together, and Lily whispered his name before drifting off.

But then, another day, it was all gone. Because James had lost his mind – it was... it was too much for him to take, probably? He supposed the death of his parents was the final blow. And suddenly he was lost, completely, utterly lost. He got stuck.

Somewhere along the way, Michael Day had appeared, and James backtracked.

He fucked up, and now he was losing her.

James couldn't stand it. He turned away.

"James."

He spun around again, stunned. Such things didn't happen. Second chances weren't given. And yet Lily Evans was striding towards him, with an expression of determination on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"I just..." Lily seemed overwhelmed. She blinked and James realised she was on the verge of tears. "I've got something for you."

He raised his eyebrows as she reached inside the pocket of her coat and handed him a small piece of parchment.

"What's this?" he asked quietly, turning the little scroll in his hands, but Lily shook her head firmly.

"Just read it."

James regarded her warily, and then unfolded the parchment. It was a letter, scribbled hurriedly in Lily's slanted writing.

"_Dear James_," he read aloud. "_I've been thinking a lot lately._"

He glanced at her once more, but she nodded curtly, encouraging him to go on.

"_I know this year's been very tough for you, and me, and all od the others. With your parents dying, with Sirius's brother joining the Death Eaters. With my sister kicking me out of her life. With the blood status thing. There is a war coming, and we both know it._"

Lily was staring into space unseeingly.

"._..And I know that it's really hard to get it through the day, with the knowledge that it might be the last one with the ones we love. It's just insufferable, I know it._

"_But I've been thinking about what Marlene once said, that all of us have this one thing, this light in the darkness, that can keep us up even when the times are rough._

"_You know, I think this is what love really is: the silver lining. Every day I see my friends, clueless and searching desperately for this one thing to cling to when there's nothing else left. Some of them have found it._

"_And so for Peter, it's your acceptance and safety. For Sirius it might be the belief in courage and justice that will win, and maybe the stolen sweaters and chocolate bars. For Marlene it might be her sister, and for Remus it might be Sirius, and their need to protect them._

"_And I know it's selfish to think of myself right know, when such a lot of people's lives are in danger, when their worlds are tumbling rapidly into splinters. I know it is._

James paused for a moment, his throat dry.

"_But, James, I've been straying. I've been clinging to many things, like a blind child I was, hoping I can force them to be my light. And I've been rejected, repeatedly – by Severus, by Petunia, by the magical society. I became desperate. So when Michael appeared, offering me safety and comfort, I settled on him, because I needed... I don't know. I needed _something_."_

James looked up, almost physically unable to read on. Lily was turning her back to him, shoulders slumped, her figure lonely and vulnerable among the blizzard. His fingers were white from cold. He tried to focus.

"_And I know now, when it's all too late, that I've been wrong. Awfully wrong, actually._

_"__I know that, after all this time of being clueless, I have no right to claim what's not mine. I know I'm misguided and afraid, because, to hell with that, I'm seventeen, and I'm probably going to die. _

"_I know it, but I've been thinking a lot lately about the days that are to come, and how tragically few of them I might still have. And I realised that I've had something better than all the comfort and stillness Michael could ever give me. I've had it all the time. And even though I'm not going to be fine – even though none of us is – I might still be happy, as unbelievable as it sounds."_

Lily's lips were trembling when she turned to James. There were tears smeared across her blotchy face as she brushed her hair off, in a short rapid movement. She looked angry, defended.

Fearing that his voice will betray him, James whispered:

"_And James, as selfish as it makes me, the only thing that comes to my mind on those nights, when I think of this light in the dark, of that thing that could keep me alive, is you._"

There were a few remains on the paper, of long precise sentences. They were all scratched out and replaced by a simple:

"_I love you._"

James's voice cracked. The whistling sound of the wind carried the shimmering snowflakes above the alley, the bright spot in the night. It played with Lily's hair, also, and froze the tiny drops of water clinging to her lashes.

"_I just didn't realise it in time._"

"_Yours, Lily_," she whispered.

There was a new silence, filled with the wind's howling, and trimmed by James's breathing.

"That's what I talked about with Michael, you know."

Her voice was quiet, and quavery.

The tears in her eyes made the world swim in soft glow of the streetlamps, outlining smoothly against the black sky. She missed the point where it became dark.

It was cold; one of the coldest Januarys she's ever had, carrying a promise of the times that were to come, and Lily was afraid. She felt like a child again, a small, redhead girl, whose sister didn't want to know her. Like a freak.

Just then, a hand reach for her hand, much larger and slightly warmer than her little cold one. Somebody reached out and pushed her chin up with a finger.

James's face was now in the view, and there was a light in his eyes, something so hopeful and happy, that it almost calmed her down. Like he always did. He steadied her.

"Chin up, Evans," he said, with this crooked smile of his, now brighter than ever. Wisps of his ubiquitous hair were in his eyes. "I'm with you."

There, in the snow, James Potter kissed Lily Evans, and there was nothing spectacular about it.

For once, there was no one to witness his glory, no one to cheer his happiness and rejoice with him. There was nobody to look at the two small people that kissed for the first time in an empty alley of a small town, with snow swirling around them.

Nothing but the wind and the silence.

They weren't going to be fine.

But perhaps...


End file.
